This is out first $XMR post since January. Monero has not been having a bad year as far as holding its valuation goes. However, it has not been having the type of year that Bitcoin has had. As of the time of writing Bitcoin is +108% YTD, Monero is +8%.

It is by no means the worst performing asset, as many project's valuations are currently in the red for the year, but you wouldn't be blamed if you've been bored away by the price of $XMR in 2023.

While there have been several key developments to the protocol both implemented this year and currently in the works, this isn't the place for that. We'll discuss the fundamentals of the project in it's own section (coming soon), but for now we'll stick to the price action. The primary developments are highlighted in the chart.

The first is the break of the all time high trend line going back to the summer of 2021. As we can see, most of April/May was spent getting pressed down until finally pushing through in late June. That's been it as far as rallies go, however. Since then, the price pretty much went right back to chopping back and forth, aside from a mid august dump that brought the price back around the breakout level of the downtrend.

The second development is the sideways triangle. The boundaries date back to the Summer of 2022 crypto collapse. From $208 on May 31st, down to $97 in mid June, the price has been chopping back and forth in an increasingly tighter range. The apex doesn't come until some time in early 2024, however you seldom see these type of patterns reach the apex, and if a breakout is going to materialize, you generally see them around the 70-80% depth of the pattern.

Where this triangle breaks out can't readily be determined from the shape of the pattern alone. Symmetrical patterns are unbiased, and their in technical analysis mostly comes in helping to measure the objective post breakout.

We don't know which way this pattern is going to break and so we have to respect the possibility of downside, but we juxtaposed these two points for a reason. Monero saw an early entry in the crypto winter by hitting its cycle peak in early summer of 2021. It has been in a bear market for nearly two and a half years.

Given that, and in addition to breaking the ATH trendline and holding the retest of that breakout price, as well as recently consolidating at the pattern support and pushing up away from that as the price gets into breakout depth, there's a lot of reason to pay attention right now.